Let’s pretend Erik Karlsson’s career thus far has played out inside a John Hughes–type film—but the Swedish version, which presumably means better clothes and avant-garde haircuts.
The opening scenes would depict a scrawny freshman arriving on campus with rumours of wunderkind status swirling around him. As the camera slowly makes its way up his five-foot-11, 165-lb. frame, a few snickers of derision rise up from the crowd around him. Still, the rookie has this preternatural confidence—you might call it cockiness if he wasn’t so polite.
The middle act of this movie is a montage (accompanied by a bouncy Swedish pop song, maybe—but nothing as tacky as ABBA, thanks) in which our guy makes good on that self-possession: athletic feats that make the eyes of his skeptics bug out with surprise and then narrow in grudging respect, maybe a rousing speech or two, some winsome antics in the cafeteria.
But then: A dramatic plot-twist throws an obstacle into the hero’s path—a devastating injury threatens not just his immediate prospects but his entire future.
Fear not: Our protagonist has a few more tricks up his sleeve. He stages an against-all-odds comeback from that painful setback, returns to form and then surpasses it. He is no longer a gifted young upstart, but instead simply the guy everyone relies on when the job must get done.
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Coming-of-age movie tropes aside, this 2015–16 season is a huge test for Ottawa defenceman Erik Karlsson. It’s time for the Senators’ undisputed top dog to show what he can do with his individual talent in full flight, the captaincy comfortably on his shoulders and no mitigating circumstances weighing him or his team down.
Last season was the 25-year-old’s first wearing the "C" and his second ending in a Norris Trophy. He led the league’s defencemen, and all the players on his team, with 66 points—including 21 goals and 30 power-play points—along with 292 shots. It was an impressive campaign, but much of that production came on the back end, as the Senators made their historic dash down the stretch into the playoffs. Like his team, Karlsson got off to a slow start—in his case, much may have been down to missing his defence partner, Marc Methot, who sat out injured for months.
Methot is healthy going into this season, and Karlsson says he’s finally feeling his own explosive power fully returning after the severed Achilles tendon he suffered in 2013. Each season, he showed up for training camp a little less little than he was the year before, until he suddenly wasn’t scrawny at all; this year, he says he’s coming in at nearly 200 lb.
The team Karlsson leads is more balanced and complete than it has been in a while, too. Following goalie Andrew Hammond’s wild 20-1-2 sprint to the playoffs, the Senators signed the 27-year-old journeyman to a three-year, $4-million contract, then traded Robin Lehner to Buffalo, leaving Hammond as the highly capable backup to presumptive No. 1 netminder Craig Anderson.
Up front, last season’s breakout performances by Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman mean Ottawa can now roll at least three lines that will provide solid, if not incandescent, scoring. And if winger Bobby Ryan suddenly finds a way to light things up as the Sens once anticipated he would, the team’s offence could be a great deal better than that. In fact, Ottawa is probably weakest at Karlsson’s position. Aside from the top pairing, the rest of the blueline corps basically amounts to "some guys."
Behind the bench, the team has stability this season in Dave Cameron, the assistant coach who assumed the top job midway through last season after Paul MacLean was fired. Cameron is a former teacher who won over his young team with his ability to communicate and encourage, and management wasted no time during the summer in offering him a two-year contract as a reward for last season’s incredible comeback.
Cameron lauds Karlsson as having "the perfect personality" for a captain, noting that he puts in heavy work at the gym to set an example for his team, even though his maddening genetic gifts mean he doesn’t really need those hours. Shortly after he took over, Cameron said he saw his role with his most talented player as helping him cut down on his strikeouts while giving him the freedom to swing for the fences as only he can.
So now, in our make-believe Swedish John Hughes film, we arrive at senior year for our lead character. His scrawny debut, prodigy-on-the-rise chapter and painful mid-plot struggles are all behind him. He almost certainly pulls up for the first day of school in a very expensive car, wearing sunglasses of a European brand so exclusive that you’ve never even heard of it. He strides across campus, at once casual and commanding—no longer a prom king but a senior statesman. The music rises, the credits roll; stay tuned for the sequel.
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